Old Testament Gospel

Thank you for listening to this message from the ministry of Morse Corner Church in Leverett, Massachusetts. Morse Corner is a non-denominational church that is committed to the preaching and teaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Our church was founded in 1896 by two students of the famous evangelist D .L. Moody. We seek to encourage and edify the body of Christ through the proclamation of God's word through the ministries of the local church.

If you'd like more information, visit our website morsecornerchurch .com. We hope you enjoy the message. Go ahead and turn to Galatians chapter 3. Galatians chapter 3. Let me begin by raising this question.

You can just think about it for a moment. In the Old Testament, were the children of Israel justified or were they saved through the keeping of the law? Were they redeemed by keeping the commandments?

Another question. Did God only care about the Israelites? Well, the answer is no to both. And here in Galatians chapter 3, the apostle Paul is going to prove that even before the law was given at Mount Sinai in the book of Exodus, you have people being justified, not by the law, but through faith.

We just saw that in the scripture reading of Genesis 15. So the Judaizers, the false teachers, were teaching that salvation came through the law. What about before the law was even given? What about the non-Israelites who did not have the covenant?

So there's a lot of false assumptions in their doctrine. Look at Galatians 3 verse 8. Galatians 3 .8 says,. And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, In you all the nations shall be blessed.

So in that verse, you have scripture personified. So it's the scripture that's preaching the gospel to who? Who's the gospel being preached to? Abraham. Abraham. Now that might be a new thought, that the gospel was preached to Abraham.

And someone might think to themselves, well, wait a minute, I thought the gospel was a New Testament thing. Well, is salvation only a New Testament thing? Were people not saved in the Old Testament? Well, therefore, the gospel cannot be exclusive to the New Testament.

Do you know when the gospel is first introduced in the Bible? It's not explicit. It's not crystal clear. But the gospel first appears in Genesis chapter 3. Because that's when sin first makes an appearance.

As soon as sin enters the picture, the promise of the Savior and the gospel enters the picture. And back in Genesis, there were no Jews. There was no nation of Israel. And all of this is going to help prove Paul's point.

Now today, we have the fullness of the gospel. Whatever gospel was preached to Abraham, we're going to look at that. Whatever gospel was there in the Old Testament, today we have the fullness of the gospel.

We know the ins and the outs, or hopefully we do. But back then, they had very little information. But a person was saved by believing even that little bit of information that God gave. Over time, God revealed more and more truth.

But it's made clear, Abraham was justified by what? By his faith. Another thing, Abraham, at this point in time, was not even circumcised. And of course, that's what the Judaizers were teaching in the churches of Galatia, that you need to be circumcised to be saved.

Well, Abraham wasn't circumcised, and here he is saved in Genesis chapter 15. So it's important to kind of know all of that, because that's the argument that Paul is putting forth. And it's also important to notice that even back in Genesis, there is this statement, in you, Abraham, all the nations shall be blessed.

God cares more about just one ethnic group out in the wilderness. It's God so loves, God so loved what? The world. So I've titled this message, and all the nations shall be blessed. That's not exactly happening right now.

If you look around, you can't say that all the nations are being blessed at this moment. But all the nations have been blessed to a degree. And where does the blessing come from? Christ. And every nation one day will be blessed when Christ rules and reigns upon the earth.

So that's all background. Let's start reading Galatians chapter 3, starting in verse 6. Paul writes, just as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness, therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham.

And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, in you, all the nations shall be blessed. So then, those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham.

For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse, for it is written, cursed is everyone who does not continue in all the things which were written in the book of the law and do them. But that no one is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident.

For the just shall live by faith. That's an Old Testament quotation of Habakkuk 2, verse 4. Yet the law, Paul says, is not of faith, but the man who does them shall live by them. Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us.

A reference to the cross. For it is written, cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree, that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.

And may the Lord add a blessing through the reading of his word. So a simple way to look at what the Judaizers were doing, they were telling Christians that, hey, your faith is not enough. I know you believe in Jesus.

I know you have faith in Jesus. But your faith isn't enough. You need more. Basically, they were saying, essentially, you need to become Jewish in order to be a true Christian. You need to be part of our group in order to be saved.

In particular, the issue was what? You had to be circumcised in order to be saved. So that was kind of a controversial thing. You can imagine, if you think about it, that's not really something that adult men would want to go through.

So their attitude, the Judaizers, the Gentiles in Galatia, they looked at the Gentiles as dogs. Understand this. A Jew back 2 ,000 years ago, and I'm not saying all of them, but it was very common, they would look at a non-Jewish person as, you're a dog.

You need to become Jewish. You need to become one of us in order for you to be anything. And in order to become one of us, you need to be circumcised. So just a quick overview from last week, Paul writing to this group of churches in the Roman province of Galatia, which would be modern-day Turkey, the nation of Turkey, the majority of people in these churches were Gentile converts to Christ.

These people, most of them were not Jewish. They were Gentile Christians. The apostle Paul was Jewish, ethnically. Of course, years earlier, when Paul was a devout Jew religiously, he was known as who?

What was his? Saul, right. Saul of Tarsus. And it's interesting, back then, when Paul was trying to justify himself through the works of the law, what was he? He was an enemy of God. He was an enemy of the church.

He was a persecutor of the church, because he was trying to justify himself through a false gospel, basically. So Paul, being on both sides of the issue, Paul has a unique perspective. I think Paul understands all of this like nobody else.

Sometimes we read the writings of the apostle Paul. You know this is true. You would have to admit it. You read the epistles of Paul, and you scratch your head. I don't even know what he's talking about sometimes, right?

Well, you're in good company. The apostle Peter basically said the same thing. Talked about our brother Paul, and that is writing. Some of the things are hard to understand. So I think Paul is operating on a deeper level.

So we're trying to understand what he's getting at. So what's happening? Why is Paul so concerned about these churches? Why is there such passion and urgency? And you know, when we're talking about the Lord, there should be passion.

There should be, especially with salvation, there should be a sense of urgency. Paul felt responsible for these churches because, well, he was responsible. These churches were established through the preaching from Paul of the true gospel, which is salvation by grace through faith.

That's grace alone, faith alone, in Christ alone. But unfortunately, what had happened, the false teachers had come in, and they started preaching a different message, that you needed to keep the law.

Yeah, you need to believe in Jesus, but you also have to do this. You have to believe in Jesus, but you have to be circumcised in order to be saved. And unfortunately, a lot of the people were buying into it.

So what does that mean? They were falling away from the truth. They heard the truth from Paul. They heard the message from the Judaizers. They believed Paul. Now they're starting to come in the other direction.

They are falling away from the true gospel. And we had said last week that the Judaizers were what? What kind of false teachers were they? It begins with an L. Legalism? Yeah, they practiced legalism.

So the false teachers were legalists, salvation through the law of Moses. And it's really sad because you know what the purpose of the law is? It's supposed to drive you to the cross. When you read the commandments, you know in your heart, I've broken this.

I violated this one. Maybe I haven't done that, but I felt like it. So that should all drive you to the cross. But instead, the Judaizers are just focusing on law, keeping rules. You're saved by doing this, this, and this.

So the Judaizers, think of the word, they were Jewish, right? Jewish, Judaizer. They're trying to get people to be Jewish, bring them under the law. So the Judaizers were circumcised. The Galatian men were not.

Why? Because they saw no need for it. Circumcision is not part of the New Testament gospel. It was really a non-issue. Just like really, it's a non-issue today. Doesn't matter. But then the Judaizers came and they said, hey, you're not circumcised?

You're not even saved. You're not even a Christian. That's maybe hard for us to wrap our minds around. That's what's happening. And they were starting to convince people. The people were starting to listen to them.

So the false teachers were having quite an impact. This was causing massive division in the church. And don't you know that's how division comes into a church? Sometimes churches divide over dumb things like, hey, we're replacing the carpet.

What color are we going to do, red or blue? And people get all, I've heard of that happening. But oftentimes division comes into a church through false doctrine. A guy comes into a church, or maybe he's been there a long time.

And then he starts preaching things that are not true. And then people naturally get upset. And they point it out. That's not right. I'm the man of God here, and it just causes division. So that's how false teachers operate.

Jesus says they are wolves in sheep's clothing. They devour the flock through the teaching of sound doctrine. And maybe one of the worst things about it, the faithful man who comes along and says, that's not true.

He gets blamed as being the one who causes the division when it's actually the opposite. Thanks for listening. I'm Pastor Michael Grant from Morris Cornick Church. If you'd like to listen to the complete message, or if you'd like more information about the ministry, visit our website, MorrisCornickChurch .com.

And we'd love to have you join us some Sunday morning here in Leverett. Until next time, with the grace of God, be with you.